Back in the saddle

Well, I have officially survived my first two classes. I don’t even want to KNOW what my blood pressure was yesterday – we had the Hatchling’s first ECFE class of the year, and I had to finish copying, collating, and assembling my course materials (which, yes, this is something I should have brought to the college copy center, but have I mentioned the procrastination? PROCRASTINATION.) The Hatchling took an extra long nap, which was helpful in giving me more time to prep/freak out, but then when she woke up I had to make a last minute run to Target for folders which left me a little less time for the commute into St. Paul (at rush hour, with lots of traffic) than I ideally needed. So I arrived at the classroom on the dot of 6, breathless and a little sweaty, my head filled with nightmare visions of surly students who will think my every technique is, like, totally stupid.

I was, of course, being a little melodramatic. (You’re shocked, I know.) Turns out, teaching is kind of like riding a bike; I slipped right back into it like a well-worn pair of jeans. It’s a different group of students than I’ve taught before – for one thing, it’s almost all boys!! That never happens in theatre classes! – and it’s definitely not going to be like teaching theatre kids. I’ll need to keep reminding them how the crazy games and scenework are teaching them skills they can use in the music industry, but that’s not really different from teaching nonmajors at more conventional schools. And they seem willing to give it a shot, which is all I ask. So, you know: whew.